Great Falls Creative Movement offers unique dance programming for kids (and sometimes adults!) at our studio, our outdoor/farm location and in partnership with schools and community groups in Franklin County, MA. Great Falls Creative Movement was founded by dance educator Anna Hendricks in ‘09 and offers unique dance programming for kids (and sometimes adults!) at our studio, our outdoor/farm loca
tion and in partnership with schools and constituent-based groups in and around Franklin County, MA. Our curriculum weaves together improvisation, social dance, therapeutic dance and concert dance practices with the goal of supporting each participants’ positive relationship with their own mind/body/spirit, with each other and with the wider world. At our studio, located in downtown Turners Falls, we offer two programs during the school year: For pre-k and kindergarteners we offer: “How do you dance?” an inclusive, community-based creative dance curriculum. For elementary-aged children (1st – 6th grade) we offer: Awesome Art in Motion*, a year-long dance program for kids. This program is above all a place for kids to come together to be themselves and to learn to love each other; with dance and the body as central to what we do together. Our outdoor programs brings together dance and outdoor education with the goal of supporting the health and well-being of each participant and of the earth we live on. Our programs take place on Abanaki, Pocumtuck, Nipmuc and Mohican land- in what is now known as GIll, MA – on a part-wild/part-cultivated homestead within walking distance of the Gill Elementary School. Outdoor programming includes after school classes for elementary aged students during the school year and small scale week-long summer programs for 4 – 12 year-olds throughout the summer months. Our school and community-based programs are run in collaboration with area schools, libraries and community centers and offer free dance education through ongoing classes, artist in residencies and one-time workshops. Great Falls Creative Movement has been awarded seven STARS Residencies and has received cultural council grants in the towns of Gill, Montague, Erving, Leverett, Shuttesbury, Wendell, New Salem and Colrain.
